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Gas threats and migrants: Belarus border, 13 November 2021
Summary
A look back at how a migrant standoff on the EU's eastern frontier spilled into energy politics and left Ukraine reinforcing its own border.
What happens when a border dispute stops being only about people and starts being about gas? On 13 November 2021, the Belarus–European Union border crisis was moving in that direction, and Ukraine was already preparing for its effects.
The question had been raised two days earlier. On 11 November 2021, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko suggested that Belarus could halt natural gas supplies into Europe if the EU pressed ahead with further sanctions. He aimed his remarks at the leadership of Poland, at Lithuanians and at what he called other empty-headed people, whom he advised to think before speaking. EU member states were due to decide the following week on new sanctions over the human trafficking that had led to the crisis.
On 13 November 2021, Russian President Vladimir Putin responded. He said that a cut in gas supplies to Europe would breach the contract with Russia. He also said Lukashenko may have made the threat in a fit of temper. The comment put distance between Moscow and the threat, while leaving the wider standoff unresolved.
Ukraine reinforces its frontier
Ukraine was not a party to the dispute, but it was exposed to it. On 11 November 2021, Kyiv deployed a further 8,500 soldiers and police officers, together with 15 helicopters, to its border with Belarus. The aim was to prevent stranded migrants from trying to cross into Ukraine in order to reach the European Union.
Pressure on routes and a training accident
On 12 November 2021, Iraq restricted direct flights to Belarus amid the migrant crisis on the Belarus–Poland border. That day, two Russian paratroopers also died during military drills in western Belarus, near the Polish border. The Ministry of Defence said their parachutes had failed to deploy properly because of a sudden strong gust of wind.
Taken together, the events of those three days showed a crisis with several layers. There was a humanitarian and migration problem at the border, and a threat over energy supplies. Russian officials were publicly weighing in, and Ukraine was committing troops, police and helicopters to guard a frontier it had not previously needed to reinforce on this scale.
